The Atonement of
Irenaeus
Imagine if one of the twelve disciples of Jesus had
personally discipled a man whose pupil had written a short book for us,
a book that explains the barest essentials of the apostles’ teaching.
What a treasure it would be if we found such a book! In 1904, a priest
of the Oriental Orthodox Church of Armenia uncovered exactly such a
book, the Demonstration of the Preaching of the Apostles. Its author,
Bishop Irenaeus of Lugdunum (modern Lyons, France) had learned under
Bishop Polycarp of Smyrna, a disciple of the Apostle John. Irenaeus
wrote this short book of roughly fifty pages to his beloved friend
Marcianus. Just one generation removed from the Apostle John, Irenaeus
gifted Marcianus (and us) with an early “manual of essentials” so that
Marcianus (and we) could learn “in a short space all the members of the
body of truth.”1 This book by Irenaeus
surprised me in three ways:

By quoting almost exclusively from the Old Testament
Scriptures rather
than from the Apostles.
By framing most of his topics through the overarching theme of
authority, beginning with that of God, then moving consecutively
through the authority Adam, then Satan, and finally Jesus.
By resolving the problem of sin, not through justice or a
substitutionary death, but through the transformation of humanity. It
is this surprise which I present for consideration today, the
resolution of the problem sin according to Irenaeus.

THREE IRENAEIC PROBLEMS
Just a few sentences into Demonstration, Irenaeus
encouraged his
beloved Marcianus to stay on the “one way” which leads to the kingdom
of heaven. Then he warned him, “Other ways bring down to death,
separating man from God.”2 At the outset,
Irenaeus was concerned not
about the torments of hell, but of death’s chief power: “separating man
from God.” He then framed the purpose of the incarnation of Jesus, not
for justice nor for satisfying divine wrath, but, “in order to abolish
death and show forth life and produce a community of union between God
and man.”3

A little further on, Irenaeus recounted the fall of
humanity at Eden.
Surprisingly, he laid the blame for humanity’s fall at the feet of
Satan rather than Adam: “But man was a child, not yet having his
understanding perfected; wherefore also he was easily led astray by the
deceiver.”4 When describing Satan’s
persuasion, Irenaeus credited him
with the transformation of humanity, saying he “made man sinful.”5
So
Irenaeus added a second problem for Jesus to solve. Not only was
humanity separated from God, but humanity had also been transformed
from innocence into sinfulness.

Finally, Irenaeus wrote about human bondage. He said
God appointed
humanity to rule over all the earth, even over the angels and the
archangel Satan who Irenaeus said dwelled here.6
Yet after summarizing
the Old Testament, Irenaeus said that Satan had enslaved us instead:
“in the original formation of Adam all of us were tied and bound up
with death . . . death reigned over the flesh . . . flesh which sin had
ruled and dominated . . .”7 The pupil of the
Apostle John’s disciple
presented three human problems: separation, transformation, and
bondage. He did not emphasize God’s wrath, nor damnation, nor justice,
nor any debt owed toward God.

IRENAEIC INCARNATION
As noted above, Irenaeus first framed the
incarnation of our Lord for
the purpose of “establishing a community of union between God and man.”
Having laid out the problems of our transformation into sin and bondage
to Satan, he then returned to that first thought in chapter 31: “So
then He united man with God, and established a community of union
between God and man . . .”

The word “atonement” has become heavy-laden with
theology over the
years, but it simply means “unity” or “reconciliation.” The Oxford
English Dictionary defines atonement as, “The condition of being at one
with others.” We might expect Irenaeus to tell us that Jesus atoned us
unto God by suffering His wrath in our place, but he made no such
claim. For Irenaeus, atonement occurred through Jesus’ becoming “the
last Adam,” and through our being “born again.”

In the West, we tend to consider the incarnation as
simply the
preparation for suffering. We view Christmas primarily as equipping
Jesus to experience human suffering by giving Him a human body. In
contrast, Irenaeus claimed the apostles presented the incarnation as
the equivalent of Adam’s work:

Jesus summed up humanity: “God took
dust of the earth and formed the
man, the beginning of mankind. So then the Lord, summing up afresh this
man, took the same dispensation of entry into flesh, being born from
the Virgin by the Will and the Wisdom of God; that He also should show
forth the likeness of Adam’s entry into flesh and there should be that
which was written in the beginning: man after the image and likeness of
God.”8

Jesus counteracted Adam: “And just as
through a disobedient virgin, man
was stricken down and fell into death; so through the Virgin who was
obedient to the Word of God, man was reanimated and received life.”9

Jesus swallowed death: “For it was
necessary that Adam should be summed
up in Christ, that mortality might be swallowed up and overwhelmed by
immortality.”10

Jesus killed rebellion: “And the
trespass which came by the tree was
undone by the tree of obedience, when, hearkening unto God, the Son of
man was nailed to the tree; thereby putting away the knowledge of evil
and bringing in and establishing the knowledge of good: now evil it is
to disobey God . . .”11

Obeying destroyed disobeying: “So then
by the obedience wherewith He
obeyed even unto death, hanging on the tree, He put away the old
disobedience which was wrought in the tree.”12

Jesus formed a better humanity: “He
manifested the resurrection,
Himself becoming the first begotten of the dead, and in Himself raising
up man that was fallen, lifting him up far above the heaven to the
right hand of the glory of the Father.”13

According to the
pupil of John’s disciple, the apostles preached an
atonement quite foreign to many modern Christians. Irenaeus did not
learn from the apostles that Jesus satisfied God’s wrath, nor that he
had satisfied our legal penalties which divine justice had required.
The pupil of John’s disciple said that the apostles taught our Lord’s
atonement as the summing up of humanity in the last Adam and the
reversal of Adam’s rebellion. Jesus swallowed Adamic rebellion and
destroyed it, raising up an obedient form of humanity, in the image and
likeness of God. Thus it was written to the Hebrews, “Inasmuch then as
the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise
shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him who had the
power of death, that is, the devil, and release those who through fear
of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage” (Heb 2:14-15 NKJV).

ENTERING THE ATONEMENT
We would ask Irenaeus then, how someone can benefit
from the atonement
of the Lord Jesus. He taught us that there are two forms of humanity,
the fallen lineage of Adam and the risen lineage of Jesus. How then,
does one manage to move from the old to the new, from dead humanity to
living humanity? Irenaeus would reply that we enter the living humanity
in the same way we entered dead humanity, by being born:

“And that this baptism is the seal of
eternal life, and is the new
birth unto God, that we should no longer be the sons of mortal men, but
of the eternal and perpetual God.”14

“And for this reason the baptism of
our regeneration proceeds through
these three points: God the Father bestowing on us regeneration through
His Son by the Holy Spirit.”15

RESULT OF ATONEMENT
Irenaeus filled most of his little book for
Marcianus with Old
Testament prophecies of Jesus (including some from the books of Baruch
and Sirach), but he ended with the claim that the second birth renders
us completely new persons:

“those inflict no hurt at all who in
the former time were, through
their rapacity, like wild beasts in manners and disposition.”16

“Coming together in one name, they
have acquired righteous habits by
the grace of God, changing their wild and untamed nature.”17

“. . . so great is the transformation
which faith in Christ the Son of
God effects for those who believe on Him.”18

“Behold, with the Father we speak, and
in His presence we stand, being
children in malice, and grown strong in all righteousness and
soberness.”19

“For no longer shall the Law say, “Do
not commit adultery,” to him who
has no desire at all for another’s wife; and “Thou shalt not kill,” to
him who has put away from himself all anger and enmity; and “Thou shalt
not covet thy neighbor’s field or ox or ass,” to those who have no care
at all for earthly things ...”20

This atonement will
sound strange to many modern ears, but all
Christians taught it in similar terms as Irenaeus until the 12th
century. Today, Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy, and the Assyrian
Church of the East still present the atonement in this way. It is often
called “Christus Victor” by those who are more accustomed to a
justice-and-wrath view of atonement. Paul thoroughly explained our
atonement in Romans 5:12-21, climaxing in verse nineteen: “For as
through the disobedience of the one man, the many were constituted
sinners: so also through the obedience of the One, shall the many be
constituted righteous” (YLT).

Finally, what we believe about atonement strongly
shapes how we live
our lives. Did Jesus only get me off of the hook from my punishment, or
did he utterly transform me? If I believe that He rescued me from
punishment, then I might find righteous living optional since
unrighteousness no longer bears consequences. If I try to reflect
righteous living, then my motive will be gratitude rather than absolute
necessity.

If atonement actually transforms us though, then my
unrighteous deeds
will rightly cause me to question whether I have truly been atoned. I
must necessarily forsake unrighteousness or realize that I am not in
fact atoned to God. If I believe that atonement completely transformed
me, then I do not try to reflect righteous living since such is the
natural outcome of atonement. Rather, I must ask the scriptures and
Christian traditions how it is that I am hindering the Holy Spirit from
displaying the righteousness which is now natural to me. This latter
question I have found best answered thus far by the Eastern Orthodox
tradition. For those interested in an outsider’s investigation of
Eastern Orthodox spirituality, I recommend The Spirituality of the
Christian East by Roman Catholic Cardinal Tomas Spidlik.